


The Light Has Gone Out of My Life

by fontech



Category: Young Avengers
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-04
Updated: 2013-01-04
Packaged: 2017-11-23 14:29:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/623186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fontech/pseuds/fontech
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Till death do us part.” When Teddy is gone and Billy finds himself powerless, it's all he can do to hold himself together in the aftermath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Light Has Gone Out of My Life

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Of Right and Wrong and Who It Applies To](https://archiveofourown.org/works/623171) by [Kukki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kukki/pseuds/Kukki). 



> So I was talking to Kukki, and she mentioned this idea she’d had. And then I had to write it because it was horrible and evil. In other words, this is her fault. This is part 1, the link above is her continuation.
> 
> Timeline is a sort of AU-ish post-CC, if the team got back together after all. Kate’s still doing Hawkeye Double-Team on the side with Clint.

Billy and Teddy are missing for several days until Tommy finally finds them. Or rather, until he finds Billy, wandering aimlessly through the outskirts of New York with tears in his eyes and a pair of ear cuffs clenched tightly in one hand.

He is alone.

He won’t speak for a long while, and when he finally manages to struggle through some sort of explanation, all he can truly convey to his twin is that his powers are gone, and so is Teddy.

“Gone where?” Tommy demands, the tone conveying his thoughts so very clearly- that Teddy is in a place they can reach, a location to which he can run. That he is gone but not _gone_ , taken or kidnapped or captured but safe, alive, capable of being brought back. The missing powers are a problem as well, to be sure, but that can be dealt with as soon as they know where to go.

He just shakes his head, though. “He’s gone,” he repeats, and there is a defeated finality in his tone that even Tommy can’t find a way with which to argue. Gone like Cassie, gone like Vision, gone like Nate (the Nate they knew, the Nate that loved being a Young Avenger, who brought them all together, who never wanted to be what he’d left to become). Gone is _gone_ _for good_. Even if there is nothing good about it.

It’s never as simple as it ought to be, he thinks distantly, letting Tommy guide him impatiently and anxiously back to the Young Avengers headquarters. The speedster offers to take him home, but he shakes his head, feeling a now-familiar twisting in his chest, an uncomfortable pain he can’t express whether he wants to or not. He loves the Kaplans, and as tempting as it might be to fall into the arms of people who love and care for him, he can’t just shrug aside the thought winding its way around his heart: that he’s lost the person he loved most in all the worlds, all the universes, gone, _gone_ , and no amount of hugs and comfort and coddling can change that.

Young Avengers HQ can’t protect him from the eventual questions, though, none of which he can really answer. Stubbornly he repeats the only responses he can offer (“He’s gone-” “We _know_ , Billy, you’ve said that, but what _happened_?” “We were fighting someone. Something hit him and- I didn’t see it. I couldn’t save him. I can’t use magic, either. He’s gone.” “Billy-” “Please… please stop asking me…”), and eventually they leave him alone, give him some time. The impression they’d received was clear enough: Teddy is dead.

That is not, in fact, what he’d said, nor what he will ever say, but the truth isn’t something he can explain, either. What had happened, where he’d gone or how or _why_ \- all of it is irrelevant. Teddy is gone.

_You’re still alive. He’d want you to be happy. He’d want you to **live**_ **.** _For his sake._

So he lives. Day by day, he lives. He lets Rebecca hold him and kiss his hair and tell him she’s there if he ever needs to talk, let Jeff grip his shoulder and ask if he’s alright, let the brothers drag him cautiously into readings of comics and rounds of video games and cry on him sometimes. Or with him.

He doesn’t cry much. He knows, deep down, that he should be crying more. Billy had always been emotional, the quiet, dryly sarcastic and occasionally depressive one. Months of him sitting in the window watching the world pass him by, speaking rarely and eating little, had taught everyone a harsh lesson about his coping methods.

_“Life is way too short for you to be sitting here wasting yours._

_Or mine.”_

People don’t change overnight, though. So he spends a few months alone in the dark most of the time, curtains drawn and door locked, no magic, no heroics, and this time, no one to drag him out of it. Because Teddy is gone. Tommy yells at him sometimes – one time he even breaks  down the door, but only once, since he lacks the magic that could have fixed it before – but for the most part he is left alone to grieve. He knows they talk about him often, hearing it through the walls. Quietly soaks in the concern. Watches the world through the glass of his window, studying his own face as if he barely knew it anymore.

And then, one unremarkable day, he steps out of his room, finds Rebecca, and quietly tells her that he should go back to school. She looks startled at first – and he can’t blame her for that – but the moment passes and she smiles gently at him, brushing back his bangs and kissing his forehead, murmuring quietly that she’ll take care of it.

For the first time he attempts a smile, and it seems to work, because she hugs him tightly and eventually shoos him off for a shower when it becomes evident that he still doesn’t want to talk about it. He knows how frustrating it must be for her, but there’s no helping that. Talking about it would mean revisiting the memories, and he’s not willing to do that yet.

Ever.

_“Are you gonna get off your ass and do something?”_

He is, he is. He’d promised.

_He’d want you to live._

 

* * *

 

Wanda visits him, of course, fretful and protective and concerned about the loss of his love as well as the loss of his magic, because, as she’d put it once, “What Victor said to you is true, Billy- no one can take your powers from you.” She brings Doctor Strange with her at least once, urging him to talk with them, to let them use their own powers and figure out what had gone wrong. He politely – then insistently – refuses each time, until she drops the subject and focuses solely on being his mother. It’s a work-in-progress, of course, the ties they’d shared via the Avengers severed now that he’d quit, their relationship awkward with Rebecca still very much in the picture. She’s trying, though, doing her best. He doesn’t expect any more or less than that.

Honestly, he’s surprised by her efforts, just as the Avengers – when he sees them, on occasion – seem to disapprove of the idea, even if they never say as much. He suspects that they’re thinking what has crossed his mind on more than one occasion already: if he possessed reality-altering magic right now, with Teddy gone, after what had happened before his search for Wanda had begun, the world could be a very, very different place.

Honestly, even he’s not sure what he’d have done. Better to not even try.

Kate is one-part gentle, one-part frustration, and one-part Too-Busy-For-Your-Shit-Again, Kaplan. She loves him dearly – has told him as much – but has also echoed his mother’s sentiment that he needs, _needs_ to talk to someone about all of this.

“It’s hard enough keeping Barton alive,” she says, her tone an awkward blend of worry and exasperation, “I don’t want to be worried about you.”

“You don’t have to worry about me, Kate,” he responds patiently, hoping desperately that his tone is convincing enough. “I’m not going to pretend that I’m okay, but… I’m not about to fly off the handle.”

She studies him carefully for a long moment, and he has to look away, uncomfortable under her scrutinizing gaze. He’s not sure what she’s looking for, but he can only desperately hope that she’ll find it there.

“…You don’t need magic to be a part of our team, Billy,” she murmurs at last, touching his arm. “You know that I know that. If that’s what’s holding you back-”

“It’s not,” he answers quickly, his gaze darting back to meet hers. “I just… don’t want to be an Avenger anymore. I can’t.”

It’s an ugly lie, almost transparently so, and the silence between them makes him fear that she’ll call him out on it. He can tell that she knows, her brows furrowed, trying to sort it out. Just one more strike on the long list he’s been giving her – giving all of them – for months.

Eventually, though, she withdraws her hand, shaking her head and offering him a tight frown that speaks volumes: _I’m not buying it, but I won’t call you out on it this time._ And the unspoken _this time_ is more foreboding than anything she might have actually said aloud.

What she does say instead is, “It’s okay,” but nothing is quite the same between them after that, and he regrets that for a long time.

It’s not about being an Avenger, he knows. It’s not about whether or not he has powers. It’s the lie today, and the lie the day before, and the day before that, and every day since he told everyone the words he repeats to himself every morning when he wakes up, to remind himself what he’s lost and what he’s still living for.

_Teddy’s gone_.

And through it all, Tommy watches him, the anomaly he hasn’t been able to sort out yet- the one he expected to be the most angry with him, like before when he’d broken the door. Because Tommy is never really very happy with him, for one reason or another. Because Tommy is impossible to understand. Because Tommy doesn’t have feelings and doesn’t hold hands and doesn’t really like him except when he does.

_“Remind me again: do we like him?”_

Thinking of Tommy reminds him that they’d never gone to P-Town, or San Francisco, or even just a gay bar. They’d gone to Wundagore, and they’d gone to Latveria, and they’d gone to Connecticut for some godawful reason he can’t even remember now and then Teddy was gone, gone for real, gone forever.

_“Till death do us part.”_

So he tries not to think too much about Tommy, merely ignores the watchful glances and scowling looks, and reminds himself that he’s in mourning too, even if he doesn’t show it as well as the rest of them.

 

* * *

 

 

He finds a routine, eventually, a way to carry on without breaking entirely, and it seems to work for everyone. Life really does go on, and the morning (Or- no- mourning?) mantra keeps him focused enough to get himself back on track. There are still bad days, of course, like when Rebecca catches him crying around a photo album they’d put together one day, or when Jeff mentions the handsome new clerk in the local bookstore and that he should really introduce himself, or when the boys accidentally pour soda all over a collector’s edition comic that they’d bought together. There’s the day that Tommy says something so callous that he wants to punch the speedster through a wall, and even Tommy is so startled and irritated by his self-control that he bails the conversation entirely. There’s the day that Kate finally snaps and yells at him, harsh and temperamental and full of words that he doesn’t want to hear but knows that he needs to, a slap of reality from the girl who is very, very good at dishing those out. He’d have been proud if he hadn’t been the one to receive it.

“You’re an idiot,” she tells him, and he’s inclined to agree. “You’re lucky you left that window, Kaplan, or I’d have really let you have it.”

He knows. “It’s what he would have wanted,” he responds, his voice hushed.

“At least you recognize that. But this isn’t much better, you know.”

Briefly, he hates that they were so close, that she knows him as well as she did, that she can tell something is still so off. But he tells himself that losing someone can change a person – he knows it, and so does she – and finally he says, “I’m trying. Isn’t it enough that I’m trying?”

The look she gives him is telling, and he apologizes, though he’s not sure what more she expects of him. Knows what she _wants_ , of course, but to him, complete honesty is just too unreasonable a request right now.

_“You need to talk to me.”_

He’s hoping someday they’ll stop asking, so he tries a little harder. He smiles at her, but it just makes her angry for reasons she won’t explain, so later that night he practices smiling at himself in the mirror until he starts to cry.

Trying is hard. Every day, it’s hard. But he sticks to his mantra and his routine and every day it feels more and more like he’s Billy Kaplan, more or less.

Mostly less, but he can’t do anything about that.

 

* * *

 

 

When they finally stop asking about the nature of Teddy’s disappearance, when they seem convinced that he is gone for good, when months become a year and then more and mourning has become a long, lingering grief, a Hulkling statue is built in the garden at Avengers Mansion, standing with Captain Marvel the way Cassie had been placed with her father’s. He goes to see it very much against his will, when they gather together for a memorial service he doesn’t wanted to attend, but knows he is obligated to appear at, for obvious reasons. He feels awkward and uncomfortable, looking at it, knowing that it doesn’t belong there, that he’d always assumed they would be together like that, Wiccan and Hulkling, the inseparable pair. Eventually. Not this soon.

For the first time since he’d last refused Wanda’s help, he finds himself desperately wishing for the magic to create a companion statue, so at least here, in this one place, they wouldn’t be alone.

As soon as the memorial service ends, he finds a flimsy reason to excuse himself, letting them assume whatever they want, and starts to leave the property, hoping never to return.

Best laid plans, and all that.

Tommy follows him for a while, darting around him in a blatant abuse of power that he finds endlessly irritating, and he’s a breath away from snapping when the speedster finally says, “There is something seriously broken in you, bro.”

Something flares in him, deep and dark and _miserable_ , and he snaps, “That’s funny, coming from the sociopath of the group.”

It earns him a moment of peace as the speedster’s constant darting about halts at that, but it’s barely ten steps later that Tommy is abruptly in front of him, right up in his face, his eyes narrowed.

Tommy doesn’t speak at first, and it’s unnerving enough for him to finally ask, his tone weary and exasperated, “What do you _want_ , Tommy?”

Silence is the initial response he receives, but not uncertainty; the expression facing him down is judgemental, more than anything else. Searching for something he’s not sure is there.

Like Kate, he realizes. And it frightens him.

Before he can speak again, Tommy is gone without a word, nothing more than a rush of wind and a line of silver light briefly lingering in the air, and he wonders what in the hell just happened.

He lingers in the garden for a while after that, against his better judgment; it’s been a long time since he saw the mansion, after all, and even though it brings back more memories than he cares for, it feels sort of like he needs this. He’d felt so reassured in this place, so safe, so _strong_. This is the first place he’d really used his powers for _good_.

This is where they’d met, where Iron Lad had found him and given him the chance to become a hero.

_Some hero_. It had always been a slim chance, he knows- that someone like him could be great like his parents, like the people he’d grown up idolizing. But he’s still glad for taking that chance. He’s glad to have been a Young Avenger.

And he misses it. Every day, he misses it. That’s part of his daily mantra too, though this thought comes to him unbidden, against his will, and unhappily. He shouldn’t want it. Being Young Avengers is what made them lose one another.

Still. _Still_ , that love remains. And he feels it more strongly than ever in this place, walking through the worn, quiet garden of statues, fallen heroes and comrades and idols of his youth. He pauses at his favourites, dusts a bit of dirt or stubborn ivy off of a few of them, reads the plaques. He works his way around the property until dusk, and then, only then, does he return to the statue he’d been avoiding all day.

He stops in front of it, hands in his pockets, his gaze drifting over the features more carefully this time. It’s beautiful, really; intricately carved, the bulky Skrull-Kree hybrid form looming over Mar-Vell, wings half-stretched at his back, armored plates gleaming in the faded sunlight. He looks up at the face he hasn’t seen in anything but photos for almost two years now, taking in the determined expression, the fierce look in its marble eyes.

He feels judged, rather unfairly, but murmurs, “I’m sorry,” anyway.

_I know this isn’t what you’d want. I know you’d be so angry if you were here._

_But you’re not._

_And I’m **trying**._

He turns to leave, finally, but there’s another rush of air at his side, disorienting and knocking him off balance, and before he can so much as call out a “hello”, there’s a fist slamming into his jaw at supersonic speed.

The force of the punch is enough to shove him up against the statue, teeth rattling, bones cracking under pressure, and a scant second later the stone explodes around him, sending him tumbling to the ground with a cry of pain and alarm. When he lifts his head there is blood on his face, dust clogging up his lungs, and he’s surrounded by the remnants of the Hulkling statue that the speedster’s powers has just disintegrated. Standing above him, Tommy is trembling with anger, and in his eyes there is grief, red and raw but not new.

“There you are,” he hisses, “ _Teddy_.”

 

* * *

 

 

_What was he, without Billy?_

_It wasn’t something he’d considered, really. He’d wanted to be normal for so long, and then he’d wanted to be **accepted**. He’d wanted to be perfect for the team, and then for Billy, and somewhere along the lines he’d learned how to be himself. And then he’d lost his identity, nearly drowned in a war both inwards and out, Skrull and Kree and Hulkling and Teddy and **who is Teddy, anyway?**_

_And with him all along had been Billy, whose super-strength was his own willpower, not his magic. Who could tell him he was a hero and make him **believe** it, because he knew that Billy did. And it wasn’t magic, really, but at the same time it was. That inexplicable power Billy held over him simply by **being Billy**._

_“You’re all I have,” he’d said to Billy once. “You’re all I have left.”_

_In response, Billy had kissed him, held him, stroked his hair, soft lips and calloused fingers and eyes halfway between honey-sweet and amber-tough. Protective, loving, sympathetic. Those eyes always made him fall a little bit more in love, and he never wanted to fight it._

_“You’ll always have me, T,” he’d promised._

_And he’d believed it. That was Billy’s true power._

 

* * *

 

For a long time, all Teddy could do was hold the body.

The day his mother died, he hadn’t really had the chance to mourn her loss as soon as it had happened; he’d been stolen away by the Super Skrull before she’d even drawn her last breath, his last sight of her eclipsed in flames and surrounded by the frantic blue light of Billy’s magic. He hadn’t even known for sure that she’d died (though in his heart of hearts he’d known, just hadn’t _known_ , not until the words were spoken aloud and all he could do was push them from his mind) so all he’d felt was terror, grief, confusion, a sudden, passionate desire for answers to all the questions her Skrull appearance had brought to life. But loss, above all else. She’d been the only family he had ever had.

Since then, the Young Avengers had been his family. Eli, Kate, Cassie, Jonas, even Tommy, for all his protesting about feelings and teamwork and family and whatever else impugned on his pride. And then there was Billy, who needed no explanation, who defied labels with a ferocity that couldn’t be tamed, who said the wrong thing more often than not but said it out of love, whose entire body thrummed with a power he sometimes couldn’t control, a contagious electricity that was both dangerous and alluring. His boyfriend, his lover, his fiancé. Above all others, his family. They’d fallen apart, died or left or given up, but he’d had Billy back again, and that was enough.

Now there was nothing, no one. Only blood, and broken bones, wounds that wouldn’t heal and lungs that wouldn’t breathe, no matter how much he willed them to again.

Teddy stroked the hair of the body in his arms, kissed his forehead, ignoring the ruined flesh and drying blood. _Always have me._ He was going cold, sightless eyes open and staring, beautiful brown and the remnants of magical, haunting blue eclipsed by death. He’d never seen it coming.

He couldn’t say his name, couldn’t think of it as Billy anymore; everything that made him Billy was gone forever. His smile, his laugh, his dry wit, his quiet determination. The gentle electric pulse of his magic, the warmth of his embrace, gone, all of it, gone.

He choked on a sob, drawing the body closer, black hair to a tear-stained cheek, blood soaking into the shoulder of his uniform. His murderer is gone as well- taken down by the blind, grief-stricken rage by the only living half of a broken whole. He had no idea if they were dead. He had no idea if he even _cares_ yet.

Young Avengers weren’t supposed to kill. But Young Avengers weren’t supposed to die, either.

He couldn’t say how long he sat like that, rocking back and forth as he cradled the remains of his love, his only family. By the time his mind finally was able to comprehend anything beyond the corpse in his arms, the sun was setting, and his phone must’ve had a dozen messages on it, wondering worriedly where he and Billy were. They were only supposed to have gone for a day or two.

It had been a silly little vacation, initially. They’d pulled out a road map of the US, closed their eyes, held their hands together, and stuck a pin down into a random location.  The result – an unknown little town in the middle of Connecticut – had earned a reaction something along the lines of “What the hell are we supposed to do there?” but they had gone anyway. And had a blast, simply exploring a new place together with no responsibilities, no worries. Just each other, the way it should be.

And then- and then they’d left, flying home, and the attack had come, and he’d turned for one second and Billy-

Billy had-

He choked on a sob, and finally, reluctantly, he let the body go, set it down in the dirt, and formed his hands into claws. He started to dig. And as he dug, in his mind was a maelstrom of questions, of fear, of sudden doubt and all-consuming grief.

The list of people who would miss Billy Kaplan, who would grieve for him, be angry at his death, perhaps dangerous so, was immense. The Kaplans. The rest of the team. The Avengers. His extended family. _The Maximoffs_.

And Teddy Altman? If Teddy Altman had died, who would feel that same pain? What family would lose him?

_Billy, Billy, Billy._ Which would be dangerous, of course, but…

But better.

Billy Kaplan has so much more to offer the world. And Teddy wasn’t sure he could live in a world _without_ him. Which meant that the alternative was…

_Unthinkable?_

**_And yet you thought of it._ **

_It’s not stealing. It’s not stealing, it’s…_

It took a long time to dig the grave, to say goodbye – tearfully, brokenly, kissing bloodstained cheeks and choking back sobs, holding back the howls of pain that clawed desperately beneath the surface of his mind – and to bury him. And by the time he’d set a stone in place above the mound, he’d already changed.

“It’s not stealing,” he whispered in Billy’s voice, pressing his forehead against the cold stone, his form a perfect replica of the body he knew as well as his own, inch by precious inch. “It’s not stealing. I’m giving you back, B. I’m gonna live for you, okay?”

_I know. I know it’s not what you want. But… it’s what **they’d** want, isn’t it? It’s better this way._

_It should’ve been me._

And it was wrong, all of it. It was so very, very wrong. His own skin felt strange and awkward, too small, and he was unfocused enough that it wavered at first. Seeing his own hands, hearing his voice, feeling soft black hair tickle his forehead instead of blond- it hurt, all of it. But he fought the urge to change back. Not now, not anymore. The body was buried. Billy Kaplan was alive and well and grieving and Teddy was gone.

_Teddy is gone._

So he walked. And Tommy found him.

 

* * *

 

And now, _now_ , after months of pretending to be Billy Kaplan which became months of feeling convinced that everyone believed that he was Billy Kaplan which have become a year of _believing he is Billy Kaplan_ , Teddy looks down at his hand, watching the cuts from the stone slowly heal right before his eyes, a power that Billy never had, and lifts his calm, stoic gaze to meet Tommy’s enraged expression.

He has no words to excuse himself, no words to explain the strange decisions he’s made since Billy died, but thankfully Tommy has plenty to say to fill the silence.

“You son of a bitch,” he snarls, finger jabbing the air between them, and there’s a blur of noise that follows, like the buzz of an insect near his ear, and it takes Teddy a moment to realize he’d been speaking too quickly to be understood again. He opens his mouth to mention this, but Tommy is, unsurprisingly, too fast for him again. “S _on of a bitch_! What the hell do you think you’re doing!? Do you have any idea how goddamn _wrong_ this is!?”

He does have an idea, actually, but after this long, he feels justified – he’d spent too much time convincing himself that it’s the right thing to do that he doesn’t think he should have to explain himself at all. It feels weird, _wrong_ , even, being in his own form again while he’s awake. He wants to change back to normal – normal? Yes, definitely normal – but he knows it’ll just anger Tommy further.

Tommy is still waiting, so he replies with, “How did you figure it out?” No excuses, no explanations. He doesn’t owe anyone anything.

Except Billy, but he’s given everything he had for Billy already, because everything is what Billy deserves.

“I told you,” Tommy snaps, “You’re _wrong_. You’re all wrong. You were good for a while, sure, had everybody fooled. But you were all wrong.”

He doubts that. Really, he does. And he says as much. “If I was so wrong, why are you the only one who figured it out?”

It looks for a moment like Tommy is going to punch him again, so he braces himself. It’s not a flinch, but the speedster seems to view it as such, holding back for the moment. “Are you _kidding_? Why the hell do you think Billy’s mom keeps trying to dump you in therapy? Kate and I have been talking about this for months. Wanda stopped visiting ages ago, you barely talk to her. Even _Eli_ knows something’s up from your text messages and he’s in fucking _Scottsdale_.”

_But they don’t know_ , he thinks defensively. _None of them know._

Except Tommy, right here, right now. Which means this conversation is dangerous.

“You can pretend to be Billy all you want,” Tommy said quietly, his knuckles white, his voice intentionally slow in an attempt to keep his emotions in check, “But _you’re not Billy_.”

It’s hard to hear that, even with his body the way it is, the form it was born into. He looks down at his own hands, the shape of them alien to him now, and wills them to be thinner, a bit longer, his body rippling and his face-

-punched, faster than he could ever dodge, and he feels himself shoved back against the statue of Captain Marvel, breath caught in a sharp exhale.

“ _Stop it!!_ ” Tommy cried out, gripping the material of his shirt, shaking him. “What the fuck is wrong with you!? Billy’s _dead_! He died and _this_ is how you deal with it!? Lying to everyone, creating your own little reality where everything’s _fine,_ where you’re _dead_? You selfish asshole!!”

“It wasn’t selfish,” he whispers, not sure if Tommy can hear him through his blind rage. Not sure if he cares enough to listen.

_It was, it was._

_It’s not that I wanted what he had._

_It’s that I needed what he **is**_.

There aren’t words to describe his reasons for doing what he’s done. And he doesn’t want to try to share them with Tommy. That would make it real, make it reality again.

That would be admitting that Billy really is dead, and he just…

…he _can’t_ …

“If you think I’m going to keep your pathetic secret to myself, you’re even more of an idiot than I already know,” Tommy shoves him back again, his anger fueled by the apparent emptiness in Teddy’s expression. Fishing for a reaction he won’t get, because none of what the speedster is saying is anything he hasn’t thought of himself. “I’m telling them. I’m telling _everyone_. You’ve got no goddamn right to be lying to them, letting them believe you’re _him_! For god’s sake, at least tell them where the body is!!”

He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t do anything, as Tommy sets free his outrage and looses his fists. He waits in stoic silence, the master of masking his emotions, unbruised due to a healing factor he wished he didn’t possess, because it’s not Billy who had that, it was Teddy, and he can’t be Teddy anymore because _Teddy’s gone_ , because he’d spent so long convincing himself to believe such a pretty lie.

“This is better,” he finally whispers, wiping a trickle of blood from his mouth, split lip already healing from Tommy’s last punch. “They’re happier, aren’t they? Because he can keep living.”

He doesn’t expect Tommy to understand. What he expects is another punch.

What he hears instead is this: “Billy’s gone, Altman. Nobody’s happy.” His voice, this time, is raw and open, more so than he’s ever heard it; the voice of a brother, a _twin_ , the remaining half of a pair left forever separated.

And god, can he ever relate to that. But Tommy has vanished before he can even decide if he wants to respond, dashing off in a blur of colour and righteous anger, clipping his shoulder as he goes. He’ll go to the Kaplans, or Wanda, or Kate. Or all of them. They’ll find the body. They’ll put an end to this charade, and his life will go back to being over yet again.

_Billy’s gone._

The words feel false in his own mind, bringing to life something twisted and broken and _wrong_ , so very, very wrong. This isn’t the reality he wants.

“I want to see the grave,” he whispers to no one, hands lifted, a quiet, broken desperation in his voice. Thinner hands, a smaller, more spindly body, dark hair and dark eyes and he’s _Billy_ , he’s _Billy Kaplan_ , he’s alive and Teddy is _gone_. He needs this. He wants this. “IwanttoseethegraveIwanttoseethegraveIwanttoseethegraveIwant…”

But he doesn’t want to see the grave, doesn’t want it at all, and magic doesn’t work unless you want it. He knows this. He can’t teleport there.

In the end he flies, and he tells himself that he only has wings because he willed himself to have them, changed his own reality.

Like magic.

_“You’re all I have left.”_

_“You’ll always have me, T.”_

That’s Billy’s true power.

**Author's Note:**

> The title was taken from the journal of Theodore Roosevelt, who, on the day his wife died, wrote those words and nothing more.
> 
> The continuation of this is written by Kukki, and can be found here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/623171

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Of Right and Wrong and Who It Applies To](https://archiveofourown.org/works/623171) by [Kukki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kukki/pseuds/Kukki)




End file.
